


All These Things That We Were

by theinvisibledisaster



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Clarke Griffin Deserves Better, Delinquents, Endgame Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, F/M, Future Fic, Have some angst!, POV Bellamy Blake, POV Clarke Griffin, Slow Burn Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, The 100 (TV) Season 7 Speculation, The Anomaly Strikes Again, TheBellarkesValentines, Time Travel, and also some fluff, but hey that's the unknowable nature of Time for you - unknowable (and also very into rom-coms), happy valentine's day, not really though because canon would never, the Anomaly may or may not be a bit of a romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22426228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinvisibledisaster/pseuds/theinvisibledisaster
Summary: Clarke dives into the Anomaly to save Octavia and when Bellamy realises she's gone, he tries to follow. Unfortunately, the Anomaly sends them to different ends of their stories.Clarke ends up back at the dropship, and Bellamy gets flung into the far future and meets some oddly familiar looking kids.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 74
Kudos: 521





	All These Things That We Were

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentines Day to [@octaviahales](https://octaviahales.tumblr.com), my gorgeous Blarke Valentine, I hope you like this fic, it's a complete mess but I put my heart into it and that's the important thing. 
> 
> I got the prompt "Miss You" and I took it both literally (Bellamy literally misses her completely when he tries to follow her) and figuratively (they miss each other and they're confronted with their old selves) so do with that what you will. 
> 
> Also I put Big Delinquent Energy into this fic (bar Emori, obviously, we can't neglect my girl) because I ***miss*** the OG days (see what I did there? no?) and I mashed together about four different Time Travel AU ideas I had, plus one that [Sydney (@octaviadblake)](https://octaviadblake.tumblr.com/)had a little while ago to create this beast, so I hope y'all enjoy it. 
> 
> Title comes from In This Shirt by the Irrepressibles and it's the most Blarke shit I've ever heard and it made me cry multiple times while i was writing this, so I made a playlist for this fic with all the songs that gave me the same Bittersweet Blarke vibe while I was writing this, and you can find it [HERE.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0RPBky6SzzQtOXJteELqQf)

_There's a crane knocking down_  
_All these things that we were_  
_I awake in the night to_  
_Hear the engines pout_

_There's a pain it does ripple_  
_Through my frame makes me lame_  
_There's a thorn in my side_  
_It's the shame it's the prize_

_Of you and me ever changing_  
_Moving on now moving fast_  
_And this touch must be wanted_  
_Must become through your ask_  
**In This Shirt - the Irrepressibles**

When Octavia disappeared into the Anomaly, Bellamy went a little crazy. At first he just searched for her, but once he realised there was nothing to be found, he started interrogating Gabriel and it took the combined efforts of Miller, Murphy and Emori to drag him into a corner to calm down. He wanted to find her, to do something, but they managed to convince him they needed a plan.

Clarke watched it all from afar, a position she had sadly grown all too accustomed to. The group planned in the main hall and she sat in the back, watching, listening, but never being asked for her input. Occasionally Bellamy would look to her like he used to, like he was itching to reach for her hand for comfort, but one of the others would quickly distract him. She wished she could fix it, but there was nothing she could do and he knew that.

And then an idea struck her. A very bad, very stupid, potentially life-threatening idea. She crossed her legs and watched the people who used to be her closest friends arguing over the table. She watched her daughter talking to Jackson in the corner. She watched Bellamy’s fingers twitch at his sides when Raven suggested waiting long enough for her to build new radiation suits. She watched them all, and she thought about what they’d been through together, what they’d lost. She thought about her own losses, about her mother, about Kane, about almost losing Madi, and she knew she couldn’t let the same thing happen to Bellamy, no matter what her differences had been with his sister in the past.

By the time night fell on the second day with no hope of a plan, Clarke was resolute.

She was going into the Anomaly.

She was going to get Octavia back.

For Bellamy.

Clarke packed a small bag and slung it over her shoulder. She knew where the Anomaly was because Gabriel kept track of it, so while everyone ate dinner in the mess hall, she stole a motorbike and slipped from the city.

But, of course, things couldn’t be that easy; when she arrived at the edge of the field the Anomaly was waiting in, green waves undulating ominously, Raven, Emori and Murphy were standing by it. Presumably they were keeping guard to stop Bellamy doing exactly what she planned to do. She pulled up in front of them and swung a leg off the bike.

“Clarke? What are you doing?” Murphy frowned, confused.

“Guess I’m making another one of those _impossible choices_ ,” she said, inclining her head at Raven.

Raven opened her mouth to say something, to argue, and the other two seemed to realise what was going on, arms coming up as if to stop her, but Clarke was moving too quickly, and she stepped past them, right into the green light that felt so loud.

It surged around her, closing in, smothering, and _everything hurt._

It felt like she was being torn apart at her very molecules.

She wanted to scream but she couldn’t remember how.

And then-

* * *

_Unending sky is darkening_  
_I turn my head to shield my eyes_  
_Unsure of what's ahead of me_  
_Not knowing has me paralyzed_  
**Already Down - Allie Moss**

Bellamy laughed at one of the jokes Jordan told, remembering fondly when Harper used to do the same, and he was reaching for another bread roll when Emori burst into the room. She sprinted to him, eyes wild, and he dropped the roll.

“What’s wrong?”

“We-” she tried to catch her breath “-we thought… we didn’t think… shit- Bellamy, Clarke’s gone!”

His heart dropped into his shoes, and in his peripheral vision he saw Madi half-stand, panicked. _“What?!”_

“Raven, John and I were there - standing guard in case you showed up - and Clarke just ran right past us.”

Bellamy couldn’t feel his fingers. “What are you talking about?”

Emori gasped for air, calming down. “John asked her what she was doing and she said she was making _‘another one of her impossible choices’_ and then she just… walked into the Anomaly. Raven and John ran in after her and I took her bike and came right back here for you.”

He was on his feet in less than a second. “Let’s go.”

Gabriel raised a finger, “What about the plan-”

“Screw it,” he said, deadly serious, and Gabriel dropped it, clearly recognising a losing battle when he saw one. Bellamy looked around the room, locking eyes with Miller. He knew before he asked that his old friend was coming with him, and it didn’t look like anything was going to stop Emori, but it was Madi he was worried about. He put a hand on her shoulder. “You have to stay here, kid.”

“No, I _can’t_ , it’s _Clarke_ , I have-”

“If I bring you with me and something happens to you, Clarke will never forgive me. She just got you back, and she just lost her mom. I promise you I will bring her home, but you have to promise me you’ll stay here, okay?”

She blinked up at him with watery eyes, but she nodded.

He let his hand fall back to his side. “Diyoza, keep an eye on Madi; Echo, Niylah, Gabriel, you keep an eye on everything else - don’t burn it down while we’re gone.”

“No promises,” Diyoza deadpanned, but there was a solemn set to her jaw when she jerked her chin at him.

“Bring them back,” Jordan said quietly.

Bellamy clasped his arm, then Echo’s and Madi’s, and then he sprinted from the room. Emori quickly overtook him, leading him to the motorbikes, and Miller was on his heels, but all he could think about was _Clarke, Clarke, Clarke._

They hurtled through the forest at full speed, and when he skidded to a halt in front of the Anomaly, he felt it leering over him.

It felt hungry.

He took a step forward.

Emori grabbed his arm. “You sure about this?”

“No.” And then he walked into the wall of green, and-

* * *

_“Imagine that the world is made out of love. Now imagine that it isn’t._  
_Imagine a story where everything goes wrong, where everyone has their back_  
_against the wall, where everyone is in pain and acting selfishly because_  
_if they don’t, they’ll die. Imagine a story, not of good against evil, but of need against_  
_need against need, where everyone is at cross-purposes and everyone is to blame.”_  
**Richard Siken**

Clarke opened her eyes.

She was lying on the ground, looking up at the starry night sky through tall green trees, and there was a familiar smell filling her nose. But it couldn’t be _that_ , because she hadn’t smelled that since-

“The fuck?”

She lifted her head.

In front of her, knees bent like he was ready for a fight, was Murphy. But not the Murphy she’d left behind - this Murphy was younger, and she recognised him, barely. It was a version of him she hadn’t seen in years, coiled like a spring with violence in his gaze. She pushed herself up on her elbows carefully, not wanting to startle him.

He flinched, hand coming out with a makeshift knife. “What the fuck is this?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“You couldn’t deal with just kicking me out, you had to follow me too?” He asked, anger tingeing his every word. “Did you think a haircut would make you unrecognisable - I mean seriously, Princess, you don’t think this is just a little overkill?”

Clarke froze. “Murphy, what day is it?”

He scowled at her. “What, you hit your head there, Princess? I don’t fucking know the day, we’ve been on the ground a while and I don’t keep count. Ask your boyfriend.”

“Bellamy?”

His frown turned a little odd around the edges. “No, the choir boy, Finn. I thought you hated Bellamy? How hard did you hit your head?”

She was about to reply when someone came crashing into the small clearing. Murphy and Raven, the ones she recognised, stumbled to a halt when they saw her on the ground, eyes darting between her and the man standing over her.

“That’s it, I’ve officially had too much moonshine,”Young Murphy said. “Either that or Blake hit me too hard last night.”

“Uh, what the fuck is going on? We followed you and woke up in the dirt smelling the panther meat I haven’t eaten for years. I’m pretty sure I saw Mbege when we were looking for you, and uh… why the fuck are there two of me?” Murphy asked, looking himself in the face. “Clarke, what did you do?”

“I don’t know. I think the Anomaly sent us back in time, to the Dropship. Just a hunch. Why the hell are you following me?” She snapped, taking the hand he offered her and getting up. “You could get yourselves killed!”

“Same old Clarke,” he rolled his eyes. “One of these days you’re gonna have to stop sacrificing yourself for us, you know. It’s getting old.”

Young Murphy scoffed.

Murphy turned to him. “You got something to say, John?”

He squared up. “I just don’t see what the Ark Princess has ever done for us, that’s all?”

“Oh boy. I forgot how much of an asshole I was,” Murphy tilted his head.

Raven snorted. “Don’t worry, you’re still an asshole.”

“Who’s this bitch?” Young Murphy sneered at her, stepping closer confrontationally as he rubbed his nose with the hand holding the knife. “Don’t look like a delinquent to me.”

And then Murphy suckerpunched himself in the face. Young Murphy dropped like a ton of bricks, unconscious before he hit the ground, and Murphy shook his hand out, wincing. “I really thought that nose thing was cool.”

Clarke rubbed above her eyebrow where a headache was developing. “And I thought Sanctum was gonna be a fresh start, but here we are, right back at the beginning. And no Anomaly in sight. How the hell are we supposed to get back?”

“That’s not the most important question,” Raven said darkly.

“What’s the most important question?”

She gestured at the unconscious body of Young Murphy in the mud. “How are we supposed to get back without changing anything?”

* * *

_A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing._  
_Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on._  
**Richard Siken**

Bellamy opened his eyes at the edge of a lake. It wasn’t one he recognised, and the sun was bright overhead, glaring off the water. There was something on his arm and when he turned his head, he saw Emori standing next to him, hand still on his wrist, and Miller beside her.

“Where are we?” Miller asked.

Emori shrugged helplessly. “Wherever it is, it’s beautiful.”

Bellamy took it in, trying to find something he recognised, and he was about to suggest they start moving when someone called out from behind them. “You took your time!”

He turned.

There was a woman standing on the bank, long brown hair plaited back from her face, and there was something familiar about it. He squinted against the light as she approached with a spring in her step, a smile working its way across her cheeks.

“You know, when you told me you’d be here, I believed you, or at least I thought I did, but I guess I really didn’t believe you until this moment,” she said, stopping in front of them. “This is so weird. You all look so young.”

They glanced at each other, but Bellamy was the first to speak. “You’re expecting us?”

She laughed. “Oh, sorry, I forgot. God, I’m so bad at this. You never told me how bad at this I was.”

“Bad at what?”

“Explaining,” she inhaled dramatically, pausing for effect. “I’m Madi Griffin, and I don’t want to alarm you, but you three are in the future.”

Bellamy blinked slowly, Emori gasped, and Miller crouched down in the sand like he’d forgotten how to stay standing, “Son of a bitch.”

* * *

_Just wait it out, I’ll come around_  
_Just wait it out, I’ll come around_  
_Wait in the shallow end_  
_Of the conversation_  
_Before we are drowning in_  
_Miscommunication_  
_I’ll be sure..._  
**Shallow End - Ayla**

Something shook the forest, making the three of them stumble, and Clarke held herself up against a tree. “What the hell was that?”

Raven pointed. “Well, Murphy was just kicked out of camp, so I’m guessing that’s me landing.”

“Well this just gets better and better,” Murphy grumbled. “What are we supposed to do, go say hello? Make sure we visit everyone? How are we supposed to get home?”

Clarke ran her fingers across the bark. “This _is_ home.”

He shot her a look, “Home is where you plant your feet, Princess.”

“I did,” she whispered. “Six years. Two thousand, one hundred and ninety-nine days without you, planting my feet. Raising my daughter-” she let her shoulders sag a little “-whose parents are still alive right now. She’s happy, with them. She has no idea how hard it’s going to get.”

“Neither did anyone else,” he pointed out.

“So many of these people are going to be dead soon,” she closed her eyes, trying to hold back the memories of burnt corpses and bone marrow.

“And whose fault is that?” Raven rolled her eyes. “Come on, we need to find me.”

“What, why?” Clarke asked, ignoring the dig.

“Because we need another mind like mine and one just fell in our lap.” Raven started making her way through the forest, heading in the direction the ship had come down in.

Murphy nudged Clarke like they were sharing a joke as they fell into step behind her, “I always said her modesty was her best quality.”

She tried not to smile but he caught it anyway, grinning at her as they walked. It almost felt normal, like they were friends, until she remembered where they were and how they got there. About how just days earlier Murphy had hated her so much he was willing to let her die. The happiness fell off her lips and she kept her gaze firmly levelled at the ground in front of her feet. He seemed to notice the change in demeanour and stayed quiet, occasionally sparing a glance at her as they walked but nothing more.

They found the pod fairly easily - a plume of dark smoke was rising from the back, and someone was struggling to climb out the side.

“Hey stranger,” Raven said, tilting her head at the figure.

Young Raven faltered, hands scrambling to remove her helmet. She tugged it off, letting her ponytail swing loose, and blood started trickling down her temple as she took the three of them in, eyes landing on her older self. “What the- I must have really banged my head.”

“Look I don’t have time to explain right now, but I’m you from the future, okay?” Raven said brusquely, helping her out of the cabin and onto the forest floor.

“Way to jump in feet first,” Murphy snarked.

“You don’t have to believe me, and it might be better if you remember this all as a weird concussion dream, but we need your help,” she explained. “We were transported here by some kind of time wave, an Anomaly, but once we arrived it vanished and we’ve got no way to get back to the future until it comes back, which could be hours or years or never. I’m thinking with our combined intellect we’ve gotta be able to figure out a way back.

Young Raven blinked slowly, taking it in. “Whatever you say.”

“Seriously, that worked?”

“If I can’t trust me, who can I trust? Plus time travel is theoretically possible and you definitely look older than me, and it’s either that or a fever dream, so I should probably go along with it anyway. I don’t know these two but I’m assuming I will so I trust them too.”

“Well, you can trust one of them,” Raven muttered.

Clarke didn’t say anything.

“What’s this time wave you’re talking about?” Young Raven asked, and the two of them sat down and got to work, drawing equations in the dirt.

“You gonna let her talk to you like that?” Murphy asked quietly.

Clarke closed her eyes briefly, grounding herself. “I don’t care. And it’s not like I have a choice; Raven’s gonna do whatever she’s gonna do.”

“Still.”

“Why do you care?” She asked, a little louder than she intended to, making the two Ravens’ heads jerk towards them.

He put a hand on her shoulder and she let her eyes trail up to meet his. He swallowed, guilt written all over his face, and said, more meaningfully than she’d ever heard him speak, “I’m sorry.”

The worst part was, she knew he meant it.

Clarke put her hand over Murphy’s. “I don’t need your apology, Murphy. I’ve never wanted or asked for one.”

“That’s why I’m giving it to you,” he said, earnest. “Because you never ask. For anything. And you get blamed for everything.”

“That’s the life of a leader,” she shrugged.

“No, it isn’t. Or… it shouldn’t be. Listen, will you just accept the damn apology?” he argued. “I don’t do this every day, and I’m bad at being nice, so this is probably the only chance you’re gonna get to rub it in my face - I was wrong. I should never have abandoned you like that. All you wanted to do was keep Madi safe and we blamed you for it as if we couldn’t understand why you did what you did. Hell, I did worse while trying to get Emori and I eternal life and we weren’t even in any danger. I understand what happened in the valley and I’m sorry for trying to let Josephine kill you.”

“When you say it like that it really puts into perspective how much has happened in so little time,” she said lightly.

“Clarke-”

“Alright,” she surrendered. “I accept your apology. You’re forgiven. You were forgiven a long time ago.”

“I know, but I thought there should be some etiquette to it.”

“Could you two _shut up_ we’re trying to solve time travel over here!” Raven snapped.

* * *

_Out in the garden where we planted the seeds_  
_There is a tree as old as me_  
_Branches were sewn by the color of green_  
_Ground had arose and passed it's knees_

_By the cracks of the skin I climbed to the top_  
_I climbed the tree to see the world_  
**To Build a Home - The Cinematic Orchestra**

“Madi?” Bellamy asked.

She winked. “That’s me.”

“You’re…”

“Old?”

“Well, I, no, not-”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m older than you are now,” she said cheerily. “Turned thirty a few weeks ago. I think you and Clarke freaked out about it more than I did.”

“Thirty?” Bellamy felt a little nauseous.

“What does that make you, like, fifty?” Miller asked Bellamy.

“Not quite. I remember back in your time I thought you were old now,” Madi gestured at him. “Funny how times change, huh?”

“I need a drink,” Emori said darkly.

“Oh, there’s drinks at the party, don’t worry, I know you said not to take to you the actual celebrations, but I can smuggle you some,” Madi said, motioning for them to follow her as she made her way along the edge of the lake.

“Party?”

“For Percy,” she said, like it was obvious. When she noticed their blank stares she laughed. “Oh. Right, sorry. Tonight’s Percy’s birthday; we always have a big celebration - Clarke calls it Unity Day and you guys find it funny but you never tell us why.”

Bellamy wanted to ask more, to ask every question circling his brain, but before he had a chance, five figures sprinted towards them, silhouetted against the setting sun. The three of them flinched, hands on weapons, but Madi raised a hand, letting them know it was safe.

She yelled out to the approaching figures, “What on Earth do you think you’re doing?”

“We’re not on Earth,” one of them said, and Bellamy realised as they got closer that they were all children.

“Don’t get smart with me, Alice,” Madi said sternly, but there was a smile in her voice, and she bent down to pick up the girl in a hug.

“Sorry Mom,” she promised, pressing her face into Madi’s collarbone.

“Mom?” Emori’s jaw dropped.

Madi turned, smiling at them. “Yeah, this is Alice, my daughter. Alice, say hello to Auntie Mori.”

“Hi Mori,” Alice beamed. She couldn’t have been more than about five or six and she was adorable, pink cheeks and brown eyes smiling out from a little round face.

Madi let her back down just as the other four arrived. There were two boys and two girls, all of them poking each other excitedly. She raised an eyebrow at them. “And what do you think you’re doing?”

The eldest - a girl with dark, curly hair cropped around her chin and blue eyes sparkling charmingly in the light - was the first to speak. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. “Sorry Mads, I know you said we shouldn’t, but we had to see.”

“I’m bringing them to _your_ party, you were gonna see them eventually,” she tutted.

The girl, presumably Percy, just grinned, looking over Madi’s shoulder to the three people still standing there in confusion. “Hi.”

“I thought Mom said they were young - they still look old to me,” the blonde boy said, prompting a pinched arm from Percy.

“Don’t be rude,” she jerked her thumb at him. “This is Theo, ignore him, he’s going through a phase. I think it’s called Griffin-itis but I’d have to check.”

Madi snorted. “Sounds about right.”

“And this is Iris,” Percy ruffled the younger girl’s golden curls. She must have been about ten or eleven and she looked shyer than the others, hanging back while the rest of them peered. “She doesn’t talk much.”

“Or at all,” Theo said.

“She talks, you just don’t listen,” Percy retorted.

“No, you’re thinking of _you;_ you’re the one I don’t listen to,” he said, sticking his tongue out at her.

The older boy, who had been staring rather curiously at Emori the whole time, finally tore his gaze away so he could roll his eyes, black hair falling in his face with the effort. “You guys are so annoying.”

Percy batted her eyelashes at him. “Even me?”

“Especially you,” he tried to maintain his annoyed expression but wilted slightly the longer she looked at him. “You’re not playing fair.”

She grinned and kissed his cheek. “Remind me what fair means again?”

“I forget,” he smirked, lacing his fingers through hers.

“Gross,” Theo muttered. “It’s bad enough we get this from Mom and Dad all the time, why can’t you keep your lovey dovey stuff to yourselves?”

Madi made a face. “Leave the lovebirds alone - you know one day you’re gonna fall in love and then what are you gonna do?”

“Elope,” Theo deadpanned. He looked back at Emori before pointing a half-hearted finger gun at the raven-haired boy. “This is Simon, by the way. Sorry he didn’t introduce himself, he was too busy being cool and dark and edgy.”

“Hey fuck you, Theodore,” Simon made a rude gesture with his hand.

“Hey, not in front of the kids, boys!” Madi admonished.

“Sorry Mads,” they said in unison.

Bellamy was slowly starting to get to grips with his new reality. They were in the _future_. Whoever these kids were, they knew them, or at least the older versions of them, and they looked up to Madi, which meant these kids were somehow part of their lives too. Miller and Emori both seemed to be dealing with it by just staying silent and watching them interact, so he followed suit.

Simon played with Percy’s fingers as he spoke, “This is surreal.”

“You’re telling me,” she said, tilting her head in a way that reminded Bellamy of someone, although he couldn’t put his finger on who. “I can’t believe they’re coming to Unity Day. Mom’s gonna freak.”

 _“Mom?_ What about _Dad?”_ Theo stressed.

“What about _my_ parents?” Simon added. “This is gonna be a trainwreck, I can’t wait.”

“Actually, none of your parents are going to see them, so there isn’t going to be any trainwreck. We’re walking you back to the party and then Emori, Miller and Bellamy have to get back to their own time. We don’t want them to see too much of their future,” Madi said. “Especially your parents - that could get very weird, very quickly.”

“Where _are_ your parents?” Emori asked, curious. “I find it hard to believe any children are allowed to roam free, even in the future, so where are your parents if not keeping an eye on you?”

“Here and there,” he said cryptically.

Theo snorted. “Yeah, if by here you mean right in front of us-”

“Hey!” Percy whipped her head around and he closed his mouth. She exhaled loudly, irritated, and turned back to the others. “Sorry, like I said, Griffin-itis.”

“What does he mean, _right in front of you?”_ Emori asked.

Percy opened her mouth but Madi held up a hand and stepped closer to the kids, putting her arm around Simon’s shoulders. “We weren’t going to tell you this way, but I guess the cat’s out of the bag. Don’t freak out, okay? Remember that we’re in the future and there are things here that you’re not supposed to know yet. But, what Theo means is...”

Theo scoffed loudly. “Oh my god, take your time why don’t you! What I meant was, Simon is Emori’s son.”

“He’s what now?” Miller asked, looking like the cat who got the cream.

“Murphy and Emori’s son.” Percy reiterated.

There was a long, awkward pause.

“I’ll take that drink now,” Emori said.

* * *

_You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?_  
**Richard Siken**

Clarke was watching Raven and Young Raven as they worked while Murphy flicked small, flat rocks between his fingers. It had only been ten minutes, but it felt like hours when there was no end in sight and they might be stuck permanently in the past. She was trying not to get antsy about it, but she knew she wasn’t hiding her anxiety very well.

“Raven, how long’s this gonna take?” Murphy asked, breaking the silence.

“As long as it takes, Murphy,” she snapped.

Young Raven looked a little uneasily between them. “Forty minutes, give or take. It really depends on whether we can predict the Anomaly’s movements, but it shouldn’t be any longer than that.”

He nodded once, curt, and got to his feet. “Cool. Me and Clarke are gonna go patrol, make sure no-one stumbles across us.”

Raven waved a hand dismissively, clearly uncaring where he or Clarke went while she was working, and Murphy grabbed Clarke’s hand and dragged her into the forest and away from the smoking pod. She expected him to drop her hand once they were walking at the same pace, but when she flexed it hesitantly, he just squeezed it and kept it swinging between them as they snuck through the underbrush.

“Where are we going?” Clarke whispered.

He glanced across at her, mischief glinting in his eyes. “Don’t you wanna visit the old stomping ground, Princess?”

She felt a smile growing in her cheeks and he grinned, tugging her forward towards the place they used to know so well. They crept up to the wall around the dropship, edging closer, and as they rounded the edge to the entrance, they saw Monty shuffling through, slipping what appeared to be some kind of herb into his pocket. Typical.

Murphy squeezed her hand again and jerked his head towards the entrance as the door swung closed behind Monty. They jogged forward, slipping through as it latched behind them, and keeping to the shadows so that none of the delinquents saw them. They probably wouldn’t take too kindly to see Murphy back in camp, not to mention they had no idea how anyone would react if they saw two Clarkes in the same place.

“Is it crazy that I miss this?” Murphy asked. “I know I was a dick and you guys almost killed me and then I came back and almost killed you, but… things were simpler back here.”

“I get it,” she murmured, eyes locked on the people she only kept in her memories as they milled around camp. Her gaze tracked across the crowd until she saw the man she was looking for - Bellamy, confident but more cocksure, brazen, and now that she was older and wiser and she _knew_ him, she could see how much of his bravado was there to hide his fear. Fear that he was a bad person; fear that everyone was looking to him to lead and he didn’t know what he was doing; fear of getting it all wrong. He ordered everyone to stay in the camp until morning, and she saw the way his gaze flicked back to the plume of smoke in the sky. She remembered what happened next. She watched him, so young, so angry, and she understood. And she couldn’t help but love him despite what he was about to do.

He waited until everyone’s attention was elsewhere and then he slipped through the wall, disappearing into the night. Only a few minutes later, Octavia seemed to notice his absence and ran out into the forest as well. Clarke was about to suggest they follow, and then they saw the familiar flick of long blonde hair.

“Hey, it’s you and Spacewalker,” Murphy hissed, pointing.

“I can see that,” she watched as the two of them walked through the gates, emotion welling in her throat, and her heart ached to see herself so happy. She could barely remember what it had felt like to be so unburdened. The next morning was the morning everything would change; when she found Raven; when she realised Finn was lying; when she found out that 300 people were going to die.

“I’m sorry,” Murphy said.

“It’s okay. I never expected my story to be the kind with a happy ending,” she tilted her head. “Actually I think it was around now that I started to lose hope - when Wells died and I nearly got you killed because I blamed the wrong person, and when I realised Finn wasn’t who I thought he was, and when people died because we couldn’t get the message to them in time; this was when I started to see the world for what it actually was instead of what I’d always dreamed it could be.”

“We can still make it that way,” he promised.

“Maybe,” she sighed. “But not with me.”

“What are you talking about?” Murphy asked, harsh, and some people near Jasper turned their heads. He yanked her further back into the shadows, behind Young Clarke’s empty tent, and fixed his gaze on her. “Clarke.”

She shrugged helplessly. “There’s too much blood on my hands, Murphy. I mean, you said it yourself when we first arrived on Sanctum-”

“-that was the red sun, I didn’t-”

“-yes you did. And that’s okay, you were right.”

“No, I wasn’t,” he snapped. “I was angry and bitter and I needed something to lash out at and you were the easiest target. I was _wrong_ , Clarke.”

“Look at them,” she gestured back towards the delinquents. “They have no idea what’s coming. All of them are going to die, and almost all of their deaths are going to be _my fault_. I don’t want to do that anymore. I’m done making the choices - my choices get people killed. When we get back, I’m walking away. I’m done.”

“Done with what?”

“All of it. I’ll live alone, far away, where I can’t hurt anyone else.”

Murphy exhaled slowly, defeated. “You really think that’ll make anything better?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But it’s better than the alternative.”

“Is it?” he muttered, shaking his head angrily. “Look around, Clarke. These people died because grounders attacked, because the mountain attacked, because praimfaya wiped them out - if none of that had happened, maybe they’d all be alive, but it _did_ happen, and without you, we would all have died a lot sooner. Me included. You spared my life, remember? When I came back to camp and brought the virus with me? And I repaid that kindness by trying to kill Bellamy. _‘I think the Princess is dead, and I know the King’s about to die, so who’s going to lead these people?’_ That’s what I said when I was standing in front of him, about to kill him. Because I knew, even back then, even when I hated you both, that without you two the delinquents had no-one. They needed you to survive, we all did.”

“And now they’re all dead.”

“I’m not. Madi’s not. Raven’s not.” Murphy’s grip on her hand tightened. “We’re all still here because of you.”

“Because of Bellamy,” she corrected.

“Listen to me,” he growled. “We are still alive because of _you_ , Clarke. Whether you believe it or not, that doesn’t make it any less true. If you asked Bellamy, he’d say exactly the same thing. On the Ring, we had a day of mourning for you every year and he used to make long-winded speeches about how you were the reason we made it, and that he loved you and wished you were still alive so he could make a thousand little babies with you.”

She elbowed him. “He did not say that.”

“Okay the babies stuff was subtext, but everything else was true.”

She was about to retort when she saw herself and Finn sprinting out of Bellamy’s tent and she remembered with perfect clarity what was about to happen. “Uh, Murphy, we need to get back to Raven, now.”

“Why?”

Because Bellamy is about to find her,” she hissed, and then it was her turn to yank his arm as she found the nearest exit and ran through it, Murphy right on her heels, hand tearing out of hers as they picked up the pace.

They sprinted through the forest, desperate to get back to the pod before Bellamy did, and lucky for them it seemed that Octavia had gotten to him first. They could hear the argument as they ran past the two of them, overtaking Bellamy with ease as they beelined for the two Ravens.

They stumbled back into the clearing, falling against each other as they tried to catch their breath, and when they locked eyes Clarke felt a bubble of laughter rising up in her chest. She tried to push it down and turned, about to ask if the device was ready, only to find Raven lying on the ground with her fingers to her cheekbone and Young Raven standing over her, fist still tensed between them.

They froze in surprise, almost forgetting why they’d been running.

“Reyes on Reyes action and we missed it,” Murphy said in mock-disappointment.

“What happened?” Clarke asked while Murphy offered Raven a hand.

She waved him away. “Nothing, we’re fine.”

 _“I’m_ fine; _she’s_ kind of a dick,” Young Raven said, scowling. “I really hope this is a concussion hallucination because if I actually end up that way I may as well give up now.”

Clarke pressed her lips together to avoid reacting, but when Murphy made eye contact with her she almost broke, clapping a hand over her mouth to keep the laughter in. She made a show of turning around to inspect the device, which seemed to be made out of the pod’s radio, as if she had any idea what she was looking at, just so she wouldn’t have to look at either Raven.

“You’re not slick, Princess,” Murphy muttered in her ear as he appeared at her side, clearly trying to do the same, shoulders shaking with mirth.

“You’re one to talk,” she said, a tiny giggle escaping her.

“Both of you shut up,” Raven snapped.

“Bring the device here, let’s test this baby out,” Young Raven said, seemingly ignoring the fact that she’d just punched herself in the face. Clarke carried it over and she twisted a few dials. “This is part of the radio, so all I have to do is put it back into the pod and the reserve power in the ship should send a big enough surge through it to activate it. The device will create a kind of shockwave that this Anomaly should be drawn to, and the three of you will be able to harness it.”

Clarke frowned, concerned. “What about you?”

“Assuming this is real, the shockwave will more than likely knock me out; it’s a timewave, so the three of you should be unaffected, but to me - as long as I keep my spacesuit on - it’ll be like a blow to the head. I’ll wake up perfectly fine in an hour or so.” Young Raven sat down in the pod, putting her helmet and gloves back on. “And if you’re not real, then this was a weird dream and I don’t look forward to having another one.”

“Thank you, Raven,” she smiled softly.

“Don’t mention it, Clarke,” she flicked the visor down. “I can’t wait to wake up and meet you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t apologise for my future, I haven’t got there yet,” Young Raven said, and then she clicked the device back into the pod and a shockwave punched through the air.

The three of them were thrown backwards with the force of it, Murphy and Raven in one direction and Clarke in the other, and then the force seemed to come to a standstill; keeping them hovering in the air. The shockwave glowed green and pulsed and then sucked back in on itself, launching Murphy and Raven into the ground and Clarke towards the sky. The last thing she saw was the twinkling of stars before the green overtook her and her molecules started screaming.

* * *

_Allow me to introduce myself again_  
_I'm the one that knew you before time began_  
_I've been waiting for you to let me be your friend_  
_Everything you ever need is everything I am_  
_I Am, I Am, I Am_

_Take your chances_  
_There's nothing here to lose_  
_Ask your questions_  
_I promise you the truth_  
_As you're ready_  
**House on a Hill - Amanda Lindsey Cook**

“Can someone explain this to me?” Emori asked, glaring around expectantly as Madi led them towards the lights and sounds of what was clearly a party in full swing.

Miller grinned. “Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much-”

“That’s not helping,” Bellamy interrupted, stern.

Miller lifted a shoulder. “Sorry.”

“Wow, so he was _always_ a dad,” Simon jerked his chin at Bellamy, his arm still around Percy as they walked. “That’s hilarious. I figured he only became that way after you.”

Percy laughed. “Oh yeah, Mom says he was like this all the time. Apparently he was more like Theo when he was younger though, y’know, all cocky and annoying.”

“Who am I like?” Iris asked; the first words any of them had heard her say since they arrived.

Percy ruffled her hair. “You’re like you. We’re all like us. But we’re a bit of Mom and Dad too - that’s what makes us so cool.”

“But I’m more like Mom, right?” She asked.

“Sometimes,” a voice said, and then a blonde woman appeared through the trees, crouching down in front of the girl. She smiled at her, warmth rolling from her eyes as she held Iris’s hands loosely. “And sometimes you’re so much like your dad it kills me. Like that little crinkle you get just here-” she poked her gently between the eyebrows “-when you’re frustrated? Or when you correct Theo’s history, or when you hide away so you can read old books - that’s all your dad.”

Iris beamed happily. “Promise?”

“Promise,” she stood up, hugging her, and lifted her gaze.

Bellamy felt like he was rooted to the spot. His feet just wouldn’t move, and his heart seemed to be waiting for his cue to start beating again, because he knew that woman. He’d know her anywhere, even nearly twenty years older and graying, and as his brown eyes met her blue ones, he felt like the universe was at a standstill.

And then she smiled at him.

And his heart started beating again.

And the world started rotating again.

“Hey Bellamy,” she said, soft, happy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever seen her so content, arms draped over Iris’s shoulders and smile-lines crinkling her eyes. “Been a while.”

“No it hasn’t, you saw him this morning, stop being dramatic,” Theo rolled his eyes petulantly. “You’re so gross.”

“Hey, be nice to your mother,” Madi scolded. “Or I’ll tell Murphy not to let you eat any cake.”

Theo groaned loudly. “This is so unfair. They’re _so_ gross, _all_ the time.”

“It’s called being in love, Theodore,” Percy poked him in the ribs and he made a face at her.

“Well it’s stupid,” he muttered.

Clarke tore her gaze from Bellamy’s and turned it on the boy, a frown forming. “Hey! Theo, come here,” she beckoned him to her side and he reluctantly walked over, looking guilty. “What have we said about that?”

He sighed, big and long so everyone knew how irritated he was, and recited the words in a sing-song tone; “Love isn’t stupid, it’s what makes us better than we were yesterday.”

“Thank you,” she said, smile returning. Bellamy had a feeling her smile didn’t stay away from her face for too long, and he wondered how long that had been the case for. He wondered how long he’d have to wait to see that on _his_ Clarke. It was the future, sure, but he didn’t want to wait nearly twenty years to see her happy. She put a hand on Theo’s shoulder. “I know it seems silly when you’re fourteen, but I guarantee you someday soon you’ll find someone of your own to fall in love with, and then we’ll all get to complain that you’re being gross for a change.”

“I guess,” he muttered, kicking the dirt idly. “I just don’t get why you and Dad have to be so annoying about it all the time.”

“Because we spent so long not being able to,” she said seriously. “And when you’ve spent so many years apart from the person you love, it doesn’t matter what people think anymore; you love each other loudly and wholeheartedly and you don’t let go.”

“That’s so romantic,” Percy sighed, leaning her head on Simon’s shoulder.

“Well, I’m glad one of my children doesn’t mind my PDA,” Clarke deadpanned.

Madi raised a hand. “Uh, hello? When you first got together I’m pretty sure I cheered every time you kissed.”

“And that’s a different issue in itself,” she teased, curling an arm around Madi’s shoulder and pressing a kiss to her cheek before she looked back to the others. “Come on kids, you’re missing the party. Murphy promised not to cut the cake until Percy actually arrives, but Auntie O is getting a little hungry, so I’d hurry if I were you.”

Theo, Alice and Iris all gasped and started running ahead, over the top of the hill to where the party presumably lay on the other side. Percy and Simon, however, kept their steady pace amongst the adults.

“Was Dad always a good cook?” Simon asked Emori.

“Yes,” she and Clarke said at the same time, catching each other’s eye and grinning.

Bellamy still couldn’t seem to find his voice.

“Is he a good dad?” Emori asked, nervousness tingeing her voice.

“The best,” Simon gushed, breaking his cool facade for just a moment. “Well, maybe except for Bellamy,” he amended, earning a giggle from Percy. “But Bellamy is like _everybody’s_ dad, and my dad is the best dad for me.”

“Good answer,” Clarke chuckled. She glanced over at Bellamy again. “I guess things never really change, huh?”

He swallowed, doing something that vaguely approximated a nod. He really needed to get a grip, but his brain still hadn’t quite caught up from seeing her and he was trying to process everything that had been said since she appeared.

“Dude, you good?” Miller asked at his side. He did the strange not-nod again, and his friend clapped him on the back. “I get it; it’s a lot to come to terms with. Being in the future, being a father, meeting your future kids. That’s a lot to dump on a guy. I wonder what _I’m_ doing here in the future?”

“At the moment? Probably drinking with Jackson and Gabriel,” Clarke said, not even bothering to pretend that she wasn’t eavesdropping.

“Awesome.”

Bellamy’s mind finally caught up to everything that had been happening and all the things he’d heard suddenly clicked into place. Being a father. He was a _father_.

They reached the top of the hill and it was like breaching a wall, because the music felt twice as loud and they could see the party raging at the bottom - there were people dancing and light flickering and joyous conversation echoing up the path, and it reminded Bellamy of something.

“Oh, _Unity Day,”_ Miller said, nodding, “I get it.”

Clarke laughed. “They told you about that? Yeah, well, the day Percy was born was sort of like Unity Day, in a way. She was the first baby born in the new world we created - ex-grounders, ex-wonkru, ex-sanctumites, ex-skaikru - we’d all been working together for months to build it all, but Percy’s birth felt like the real beginning. Octavia made us throw a party even though I was tired, and it was the best idea she’s ever had.”

“Not a high bar,” Emori deadpanned.

“Something about that day just made everything feel… _right_. Everything fell into place and it finally felt like we were on the right track, like we weren’t stuck in the same cycle of destruction we always had been. We were starting anew; we were creating a new life.”

“Literally,” Miller added.

She grinned at him. “Yeah, that too.”

“You never told me that story,” Percy said quietly.

“Of course we did,” Clarke said, brow furrowing slightly. “Your father tells you every year.”

“What, no he doesn’t?”

She tilted her head. “Well… okay, you’re right, he doesn’t tell you _exactly_ that story.”

“What story does he tell?” Miller asked, curious.

“The story of her name,” Clarke looked to Bellamy again, “Persephone.”

It clicked into place, and the others all swivelled their heads at him as well, expectant. He felt tears forming in his cheeks. “Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. One day, Hades was looking up from the underworld and he saw her picking flowers and he fell in love with her on the spot. He took her down to the underworld and promised to keep her there forever. Despite her intentions, Persephone fell in love with Hades as well, and she ate six pomegranate seeds from the garden. Eating food from the underworld means that one can never leave, and when Demeter found this out, she was furious, and plunged the world into a never-ending winter. Crops died, people began to starve, and the world was cold. Zeus was angry and ordered Hades to return Persephone to her mother, but Persephone had eaten fruit of the underworld and Zeus had no power to remove her. So he struck a deal - Persephone had eaten six seeds from the pomegranate, so she would spent six months of the year with Hades, and six months with Demeter. In the months she spent below, the world frosted over, and when she returned to the surface, the summer bloomed and the world started anew.”

“I don’t get it,” Emori said.

“Persephone’s story is the story of the seasons,” he said. “She brings balance to the world.”

“Just like you,” Clarke kissed the crown of Percy’s head. “You brought balance to our whole world.”

“That’s so convoluted,” Miller shook his head. “Three guesses who named her.”

“Hey, I vetoed the other ones, you’re lucky we got Persephone and not Hestia or Athena or Hephaestus.”

“Hephaestus was a male god,” Bellamy pointed out.

“Still, I wouldn’t have put it past you,” she teased, and he had a feeling it was a discussion they’d had before. “You’d find a reason, like _he was the blacksmith of the gods and our daughter will be the forge of this new world_ or something.”

Miller choked on air.

“That does sound like you,” Emori tried and failed to hide her amusement.

“This isn’t fair, you’re ganging up on me,” he muttered.

“Face it Dad, you’re a nerd,” Percy said, rolling her eyes in his direction with the snark of a teenage girl. His heart fumbled again at the words because that was the first time anyone had called him ‘Dad’ and he wasn’t sure how to react. Someone called out from the party crowd and Percy and Simon started to move down the hill towards the source of the voice, but before they could get even halfway, Percy tore away and ran back up the path, barrelling into Bellamy. He stumbled back, arms instinctively wrapping around her, and she clutched him tightly, burrowing her face into his shoulder.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded into his shirt. “I love you, Dad.”

He blinked a little faster, tears unexpectedly welling in his eyes, and he realised that despite the fact that this was a future he wasn’t going to have any part in for a long time, despite not knowing her, he loved her right back. His daughter.

His daughter with Clarke.

He lifted his gaze to find her, still somewhat surprised to find the older, happier version of his best friend instead of the one he was so familiar with, and she smiled back, understanding. Even with the gap of knowledge between them, she still seemed to know what he was thinking.

“Come on,” she murmured, gently prying her daughter from Bellamy’s shoulder. “Let’s go celebrate, yeah?”

She sniffled, but nodded enthusiastically. “Are you gonna beat Uncle Jordan at darts again?”

“Absolutely,” she promised. “Can’t let him break my streak, can I?”

“Are you guys coming?” Percy asked the others, and Emori and Miller shrugged, leaving the decision up to Bellamy.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to know too much about our future,” he said slowly. “I think we already know far too much, and it’s probably a good idea for us to find our way back now. We only ended up here because I was looking for your mother.”

“Why, what happened?”

“She did something dangerous and I didn’t want to let her do it on her own.”

“Why would she try and do it on her own when she has you?” Percy asked, frowning.

He still hadn’t stopped staring at Clarke. “Because I haven’t told her she has me yet. But she does. She always has. Sometimes the universe just gets in the way.”

“But… why don’t you just tell her when the universe _isn’t_ in the way?”

“It’s never been the right time,” he swallowed. “Sometimes, Percy, the scariest thing in the world is telling the person you love that you love them.”

“Why?”

“Because you might not hear the same words in return,” Clarke explained for him. “Or you might say you love someone and then lose them, and there’s nothing worse. But…” she reached out, fingers curling around Bellamy’s wrist. “She needs to hear it, Bellamy. She’s lost, and she misses you. She needs you, like I always do. There is no right time, there’s just whatever time we have left.”

He nodded, and her fingers trailed over his as she let her hand drop to her side.

“Come on, kiddo,” Madi broke the silence, hooking her arm around Percy’s and starting to descend the hill. “Bye guys - see you soon.”

“Bye Auntie Mori, bye Uncle Nate,” Percy waved back at them as they walked away. “Bye Dad.”

“Happy birthday, Persephone,” Bellamy called out, feeling somehow wistful, and then it was only the three of them and Clarke. She tilted her head at them like she was trying to memorize their faces.

“What are we supposed to do now? How do we get back?” Emori asked.

“Leave that to me,” Clarke pulled a small green gem from her pocket and threw it at the ground between their feet. Blue-green smoke started rising around the three of them, encircling them, and she stepped back, avoiding it. “Take care of each other. It’s not going to be easy, at least not for the first few years, but you can do it. You just have to stick together. Old bonds and new.”

Something started rumbling across the lake behind them, making the sand ripple.

She took another step back.

“Hey Clarke?” Miller yelled. “I knew you’d be a MILF.”

She laughed, and the sound was like music through the trees, and Bellamy tried to hold onto the melody as he felt the wave of the Anomaly hit them from behind, engulfing them completely.

* * *

_Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture_  
_And save it from the funny tricks of time_  
_Slipping through my fingers…_  
**Slipping Through My Fingers - ABBA**

The floor beneath Clarke’s back was cold, hard, and she knew where she was before she opened her eyes. She just wasn’t quite sure _when_. She was also alone - no Raven or Murphy in sight, and she realised instinctively that the Anomaly had sent them somewhere else. She wondered how she was supposed to find it again without Raven to help, but that was a secondary problem. The important thing was making sure no-one saw her.

“I’m sorry, Jake, but I have to take you in,” a familiar deep voice thrummed through the metal and Clarke sat up.

She was in her old bedroom on the Ark, lying on the floor, and her door was open a crack. She crawled over to it, making sure to stay hidden, and pressed her ear as close as she could to the gap.

“I understand that you think you’re doing the right thing, Thelonius. But I hope you understand that I was only doing the same.”

“You’ll have a trial, of course.”

“Of course,” Jake mocked. “Just so you don’t have to say I was executed without one.”

“Jake-”

“Save it, Chancellor. We both know how this ends.”

Footsteps faded out of the room and Clarke crept out, following them. She kept at a respectable distance, but she wanted to know where they were going to hold him - he only had a few hours at most before Jaha gave the order, but they had to keep him somewhere. She knew it was risky, but this might be her last ever chance to speak to her father again and she wasn’t going to let it slip through her fingers.

So when the guards tossed him in a cell she swiped the key as they passed and let herself in.

He was sitting on the edge of a cot, elbows propped on his knees, and when he heard her close the door, he lifted his head. Bemusement flickered across his face, followed quickly by understanding. “Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?”

She narrowed her eyes, confused. “What?”

He sighed, a smile tweaking at the corners of his mouth the way it always did when he was cheerfully disapproving of something. “Still haven’t watched those movies? I always planned to watch them with you when you turned eighteen, and I guess I’m not going to be around for that anymore, but I figured you’d see them eventually.”

“So you know who I am?”

“You’re my baby girl,” he said, eyes warm. “A little older than I remember, but still my baby girl.”

“I don’t have a lot of time,” she admitted. “If guards catch me in here it’s going to be hard to explain why there are two of me.”

He let the smile wash from his eyes down to his cheeks and sat back a little so he could look at her. “Time travel, huh? How’d you manage that?”

“It was sort of an accident. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.”

He patted the mattress next to him and she sat down, resting her head on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her and kissed the crown of her head, and she wanted to cry because she’d missed this for so long.

“I miss you,” she whispered.

He kissed her head again. “I know you do. But it’s not just me you miss, is it? My beautiful grown-up daughter. I can see it in your eyes; you’ve lived a long life since the last time you saw me, and you’re carrying so much of it with you. I never wanted to see you so lost. I did this so you wouldn’t end up like so many people do: disillusioned and lonely and desperate. I wanted to make a better world for you.”

“You did,” she sat up, looking at him properly, committing his face to memory. “You made it better, I swear you did.”

“Then why do you look so _sad_ , my baby girl?” Jake cupped her cheek in his hand and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Surely that all can’t be for your dear old dad? So much sadness for one person - where could all that possibly have come from?”

She closed her eyes briefly. “A lot has happened since you died, Dad.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” he promised, but she found that once she started she couldn’t stop, and suddenly she was spilling every mistake she’d ever made. Every failure, every loss, every misstep - she told him all of it. And he sat, patiently, while she spoke, until finally, she reached the moment she stepped into the Anomaly.

“And now I’m stuck here and I’m not sure if it’s ever coming back, or what’ll happen if it does.”

He hummed thoughtfully to himself. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing,” she shook her head.

A look of clarity passed over his face. “Who is it?”

“What?”

“Who’s the person you’re missing? The person your heart is so broken over? Because there’s a lot of sadness in those eyes, and your stories explain that, but there’s heartbreak too. There’s someone in there that you’re not letting go of. A father knows these things,” he slid his hand around to her hair, stroking it gently.

She blinked new tears from her eyes and watched as they fell onto her knees. “He’s… he’s just…”

“Ah,” he said, quiet, monumental, “it’s _that_ kind of love.”

“What kind?”

“The true love kind. I never had that sort of love. I love your mother, of course I do, but not in the way you love this boy - it’s its own kind of magic, Clarke. That world-crossing, star-spinning love, the kind you can’t let go of even when you know you should. My parents loved each other like that; I always wished I would find it, and for a while with Abby I thought that was it, but it’s not the same. But you… my girl, you’ve got a heart that could outlast the sun.”

“I’ve never been good at thinking with my heart,” she said. “But Bellamy’s always been my blindspot.”

“The co-leader?” Jake asked. He chuckled softly, shaking his head, and reached for her hand. “Does he know?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you told him?”

“I can’t,” she hung her head, screwing her eyes up to try and hold back the emotion in her cheeks. “He’s in love with someone else.”

“Tell him anyway,” Jake murmured. She jerked her head up, confused, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Anyone who is loved this much deserves to know.”

“What if it pushes him away?”

“It won’t.”

“How can you know that?”

“Clarke. My Clarke,” he held her face in both his hands. “A father knows.”

And then green started swelling under the door and in seconds she was engulfed in the wave. The last thing she saw were her father’s eyes as she evaporated into the Anomaly.

* * *

_“You go to work the next day pretending nothing happened._  
_Your co-workers ask_  
_if everything's okay and you tell them_  
_you're just tired._  
_And you're trying to smile. And they're trying to smile.”_  
**Richard Siken**

Bellamy landed on top of something familiar.

“Get off me, Blake,” Murphy grunted, shoving at him, and he clambered off him. When did Murphy get here? He glanced around; Emori and Miller were leaning against the metal walls, and Raven was limping towards the door.

“Where are we?” Emori asked.

 _“When_ are we?” Raven corrected, craning her neck around the corner. “You know where we are. We’re on the Ring.”

Murphy groaned. “Urgh, _again?”_

“I thought we escaped this place,” Emori echoed his sentiments.

“Well at least Clarke and Miller will get to enjoy the horror-” Murphy froze. “Wait. What’s going on, where’s Clarke?”

“What do you mean?” Miller asked.

“She was with us, in the forest, just a second ago! Where the hell is she?”

Bellamy started to feel panic rise in his chest. Not only was Clarke not with them, but that now meant that she was out there on her own, and he didn’t want to think about the hundreds of unkind places the Anomaly could have sent her. He flattened his palms against his thighs and steeled himself. “We’ll find her. The Anomaly brought us here, so it obviously has some control over where it sends us.”

“And what if the Anomaly wants us to lose Clarke?” Murphy asked.

“Hey!” Emori snapped. “We’re gonna find her, okay?”

“I’m just saying, Giant Semi-Sentient Swirling Time Vortex versus some puny earthlings? I’d bet on the green guy,” he said matter-of-factly. “Anyway, where are we? We were trying to harness the wave’s energy to send us home, but it sent us to you, instead.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Raven said pensively. “Maybe it’s not sentient, maybe it just picks up where we think home is.”

“So it brought us here? This isn’t exactly the place I would pick to call home,” he made a face.

“But I did,” she said, thinking it over. “And I was the one who made the device, so maybe it was reading me.”

“Oh great, so now in order to get back to Sanctum next time the wave comes around we have to click our heels three times and say _‘there’s no place like home’_? Sounds just peachy. Not at all liable to go wrong.”

A faint voice carried up the corridor and Raven closed the door, gesturing for all of them to hide. They dove behind pillars and around corners, and just in the knick of time - Monty and Harper strode into the hallway, arm in arm.

“Do you think Bellamy’s okay?” Harper asked.

Bellamy swallowed. Seeing the people he loved up close, after losing them, after not being able to say goodbye, was torture and it was taking every fibre of his strength not to emerge from hiding and hug them both.

“He’s never okay at this time of year,” Monty said sadly. “It’s the anniversary of Clarke’s death next week.”

“I know…” Harper slumped. “I miss her too, but Bellamy… it’s like every year it crushes him all over again. She wouldn’t want him to hang onto her like this. It’s unhealthy. If I died, I wouldn’t want you to mourn for the rest of your life.”

“If I die first, I expect you to enforce a national day of mourning,” Monty teased, trying to cheer her up, but the grief was clear in his own face, and they paused a moment in the corridor, just leaning on each other. “I don’t think it’ll be the rest of his life. But it’s almost five years and we still haven’t found a way down, so I think it’s hitting him harder this year because he knows he’s still stuck apart from Octavia.”

“You’re right. I just wish we could do something to cheer him up.”

“I could show him my new strain of algae?”

She giggled. “Babe that’s so sweet but I’m not sure that’s going to do the trick.”

“We’ll brainstorm,” he suggested, lacing their fingers together, and the two of them continued down the corridor and disappeared into the bowels of the ship.

When they were sure the coast was clear, everyone stepped out of hiding, eyes on Bellamy. He tried to shrug their gazes off, but they stuck, and he found himself wondering where he was on the ship, what day it was that Monty and Harper would be so worried about his well-being.

“You had bruised knuckles,” Raven broke the silence. “I remember this week. You had bruised knuckles and we _knew_ you’d done it to yourself, like you’d punched a wall or something, but none of us could prove it and nobody wanted to ask because we knew the answer was Clarke.”

“Oh.” Emori realised.

“Monty and Harper were concerned, but we all brushed them off, and then we found you unconscious near the airlock window. You’d been so consumed by grief that you forgot to eat or drink for two days and you passed out, and Echo found you. We realised we should have listened to Harper when she told us to keep an eye on you, but we thought you were getting over it. You seemed to be dealing with it better, except for the bruised hand, and we liked that we didn’t feel so sad for the first time. It felt like we were moving on.”

“It was selfish,” Murphy said. “We should have noticed, like they did.”

“It’s not selfish,” Bellamy shook his head. “You were moving on, it’s not your fault that I wasn’t. It was my responsibility and no-one else’s.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what gets you unconscious near a porthole,” he retorted. “We’re supposed to be family. We’re supposed to look out for each other.”

“We do,” Raven said.

“Except for Clarke,” Murphy said pointedly, raising an eyebrow at her.

She bristled, turning away from him. “That’s different.”

“Why, because she upset you? That’s a good enough reason?” Miller asked.

“Look, I already got this from Young Me; I don’t need it from you as well. I get it, I’m being stubborn, but I can’t make myself feel forgiveness if I don’t, okay, so just drop it.”

“What are you talking about?” Emori asked, confused.

Murphy’s eyes widened. “Oh my god, is that why she punched you?!”

“Can someone explain what’s going on? What do you mean Young Raven?”

Raven muttered what was clearly profanity under her breath and then sighed. “We were sent back to the Dropship days - right after I landed. I got my young self to help build the device to harness the Anomaly and she noticed I wasn’t talking to Clarke, so when they left she asked me why. I told her the whole story and she… She reminded me that she would have done anything for Finn. That she’d crash-landed on Earth for Finn, and that was nothing compared to being a mother. I told her it wasn’t the same thing but when I tried to argue she, uh-”

“-punched you in the face.” Murphy finished for her.

“Wow, that’s trippy,” Miller said. “Not as trippy as meeting your own kids, but it’s up there.”

“You met your own kids?!” Murphy whipped around, disagreement with Raven already forgotten.

“Not _mine_ , Emori and Bellamy’s.” At their blank looks he rushed to explain. “No, wait - Emori’s son, and Bellamy’s children. Different. Not the same kids.”

“Children, plural?” Raven asked, incredulous.

“Apparently,” Bellamy said, and then the worlds started to distort, and green started folding into the hallway.

“Shit.” Murphy stepped backwards, hitting Miller’s chest. “Guess the wizard is sending us home.”

“You’re a fucking weirdo, you know that right?” Miller said.

“Everybody, think of home!” Raven called out just as the green wave hit, and Bellamy had the idle thought that it reminded him of Praimfaya.

* * *

_May angels lead you in._  
_Hear you me my friends._  
_On sleepless roads the sleepless go._  
_May angels lead you in._

_So what would you think of me now,_  
_So lucky, so strong, so proud?_  
_I never said "thank you" for that,_  
_Now I'll never have a chance._  
**Hear You Me - Jimmy Eat World**

“When did you have time to cut your hair?”

Clarke opened her eyes.

Wells Jaha was sitting in front of her, dusk rays curving around him and making him glow. She collapsed next to him, throwing her arms around his shoulders and hugging him as tight as she could.

“Okay, okay, I like the hair!” He laughed, and when she sat back, he squinted at her in the dim light. “You alright?”

“I’m fine,” she reassured him. “I just… I wanted you to know how much I love you. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” he smiled. “But we have plenty of time to make up for it.”

Clarke checked her watch. They barely had any time, but she couldn’t tell her best friend that. She wanted to tell him everything, but there was just never enough _time_. She told her father all her mistakes but she didn’t want to burden Wells with those when he was beginning to see the future with her again. She didn’t want him to die knowing that things didn’t get better.

“I can’t sleep,” she said instead. “I keep having these dreams that I’m from the future and I’m going back in time, but I’m not going over my whole life, it’s just the beginning of our time on Earth and I don’t know why it keeps sending me back to the start, or why it won’t show me anything else. It’s like I’m stuck here.”

“In your dreams, you’re from the future?”

She nodded.

“What does it look like?”

“Bright,” she vowed. “It’s brighter than we think it could be down here. It gets better.”

“But your dreams keep sending you back here?”

“Yeah,” she frowned.

“Maybe it’s trying to tell you something,” he suggested. “Maybe this part of your life is important for some reason, maybe it’s trying to tell you to remember where you came from.”

She pulled him into another hug. “Or maybe it’s letting me finish my unfinished business.”

“That’s ghosts, Clarke,” he said into her neck. “I don’t think Time cares if you have unfinished business.”

“True,” she said, but something about the idea stuck in her head. “It’s probably just my subconscious that has the problem.”

“Most likely,” he agreed, and she could see green glowing through the inside of her eyelids. She knew the moment wasn’t going to last, but she wanted to keep holding onto it anyway. He chuckled when he tried to pull away and she held him tighter. “So now that we’re friends again, are we ever gonna talk about the fact that Finn and Bellamy both have a thing for you?”

“Bellamy?” No, he didn’t, of course not. Not back here, not when she remembered how much he’d hated her.

“Hey he might dislike you, but I think he likes you anyway, and I think it freaks him out,” Wells said. “He saved you from that pit of spikes, didn’t he?”

“He would have done that for anyone,” she said, and she wholeheartedly believed it.

Wells pinched her arm. “Would he?”

The green glowed so harshly she thought she might have opened her eyes by mistake, and she felt it tugging at her atoms and knew it was time to say goodbye, but she couldn’t do it, not the way she wanted to.

“I love you, Wells,” she murmured, and then she was scattered into the Anomaly once more.

* * *

_Keep me here_  
_My heart is near_  
_My love has gone away_  
_Tell me true_  
_My heart is new_  
_My love has gone away_  
  
_It's okay_  
_I know someday I'm gonna be with you_  
**It's Ok - Tom Rosenthal**

  
Bellamy was in a desert.

He was also completely alone - no Murphy or Emori or anyone to be seen. Well, that threw a wrench in things. He hoped they all got back to Sanctum okay, but in the meantime he had to start thinking about how to get _himself_ back. He tried to work out where he was, already feeling himself overheat in the burning sun - but it was just one sun, so he was definitely back on Earth.

It was a dry, scorching heat, the kind he’d never experienced before. It was like everything was one inch from catching fire, and he felt sand dancing across his skin as the wind spun it through the air.

“This is too cruel,” someone said, and he turned around.

Clarke was standing halfway up a dune, wrapped up to shield her skin despite the heat, and she was propping herself up with a large makeshift cane of some kind. She looked exhausted, and there were marks on her face. His heart dropped into his stomach, because he knew exactly when he was, and he didn’t know how to deal with it.

“Why couldn’t it just kill me? Why did it have to torture me first?” She brushed past him angrily, deliberately avoiding touching him as she did. “I thought I was done with hallucinations after Finn.”

“I’m not a hallucination,” he tried.

“Subconscious then, whatever you wanna call it,” she stomped further. “You know, I’ve heard about the effects of severe dehydration, and I’m pretty sure hallucinations are the bit that comes right before death.”

“You’re not going to die.”

“No? You’re not here. I’m not even sure you made it up there,” she gestured at the sky. “Maybe all this was for nothing and there’s no point in surviving anyway. Mom’s trapped in the bunker with your sister, you’re on the Ring with the others, if you didn’t die, and even if you didn’t, why would you ever wanna come back here?”

She spun in a slow circle, arms oustretched.

“Look at this place. It’s dead. Barren. Empty. Wanheda finally managed to kill _everything_.”

“Clarke, this wasn’t you. You _saved_ everyone!”

She tilted her head. “It’s nice to know there’s a part of my subconscious that still believes that. Or maybe I’m just hoping that’s what you’d say.”

He wanted to reach out and hold her hand, but she started back on her path, surging through the heavy sand. He jogged to catch up, attempting to catch her eye. “You’re not alone, Clarke.”

She scoffed, staring at her boots as they flicked burning sand into the air. “Haven’t you heard? I’m the last person left on this godforsaken planet. I’m the _definition_ of alone.”

Green rose up from the sand at Bellamy’s feet and he tried to leap forward, to escape the licks of emerald fire, but it curled around him and he could only see Clarke’s back to him as she walked endlessly through the desert.

* * *

_“There’s a dream in the_  
_space between the hammer and the nail: the dream of_  
_about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream, but the nail will_  
_take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever.”_  
**Richard Siken - War of the Foxes**

Clarke rubbed her eyebrow. All this time travel was starting to give her a headache. She looked around, not sure what to expect, and found Octavia sitting across from her, cross-legged.

“Hi.” She said dumbly.

“Hi,” Octavia replied. “It’s about time.”

“Where have you been?”

“Here, mostly,” she pointed at the source of light above them and Clarke realised they were in some kind of cave lit by a skyhole. “Hope had to assassinate me to save her mother, but she never wanted to actually kill me, so we faked my death and I’ve been hiding along the timestream ever since. I mostly keep to myself ever since I almost screwed up and told Lincoln how he died to try to save him. The Anomaly doesn’t like it when you mess with predetermined events, so it tossed me right into the beginning of Praimfaya. That mustn’t have been fun for you.”

“Not particularly,” Clarke said, brain racing to catalogue all the information. “So you’re hiding in the timestream?”

“I was - I couldn’t get back to your time because if I went back on my own, I’d have a traceable signature and they’d realise I was still alive,” she rubbed her hands together. “But now that you’re here, I can piggyback off your signature and they won’t know it’s me.”

“You’ve been waiting for me so you can hitch a ride home?”

“Pretty much. Also, it’s good to see you,” she smiled, genuine. “The real you, I mean. It’s been really hard seeing you and not being able to talk to you properly. And I’ll finally be able to get home and see my brother again.”

“So what do we have to do to get home?”

“The Anomaly picks up on brainwaves and emotions, so you just have to think about how much you want to get back to Sanctum in your time and it’ll throw us both back there.”

Clarke held out her hand. “So let’s go.”

Octavia clasped it, “I’m almost surprised Bellamy isn’t with you.”

“He wanted to, I just got here first.”

Green swirled towards them, appearing from the corners of the room.

“Typical,” Octavia said.

The wave hit them and Clarke tried to think of Sanctum but the thought of Bellamy, alone and worried, wormed its way into her brain, and as her molecules stretched, Octavia’s fingers slipped from hers, and they spun away in different directions.

* * *

_Forget what I said_  
_It's not what I meant_  
_And I can't take it back_  
_I can't unpack the baggage you left_

_What am I now?_  
**Falling - Harry Styles**

Bellamy was at the dropship and he could smell cooked meat and hear the rabble of the delinquents. He had the odd feeling he’d just missed something, like someone walking past him in the dark.

He shook off the feeling and crept closer to the edge of camp, and was about to poke his head over the barricade to see in when he noticed someone sneaking out.

Octavia was creeping away from the dropship, pockets full of supplies, and she glanced over her shoulder, checking that no-one had noticed her departure. Bellamy decided to follow her at a distance, making sure to stay hidden from view. He was better at this now than he was back at this time - he was so young and brash and loud here, and he cringed at the thought.

Octavia stopped near a small cluster of trees. “Lincoln?”

A hand snaked out, catching her forearm.

She jumped. “You scared me!”

“Keep low,” he inclined his head apologetically. “We can’t be seen.”

He guided her through the dense cluster of branches and into a small grove, and Bellamy hung back, feeling like he was disturbing their privacy but not sure how to let go. It was his _sister_. Back when she was young and happy and carefree, before the world beat it out of her, and he couldn’t look away.

“My brother’s still looking for you,” Octavia said, irritation tingeing her voice.

“He needs someone to blame for these latest attacks and he knows my face,” Lincoln said sagely. God, Bellamy missed that quiet wisdom. He missed Lincoln.

He missed all of this.

He’d spent so long on the Ring trying to lock these memories away in the back of his mind so he didn’t have to face the grief of them every day, trying to forget his baby sister, trying to forget Lincoln, trying to forget Gina, trying to forget… Trying to forget _her_ , so he didn’t have to mourn her every year. It almost worked, but it also completely closed off a part of his heart, and as he watched his sister - already so in love with the grounder who saved her - he felt it unlocking, and all those emotions poured out. Good, bad, right, wrong: every feeling he’d been trying to avoid came flooding into his chest.

“I’m sorry, O,” he whispered to the leaves. “I shouldn’t have been so overprotective. I should have let you have as many minutes, as many _seconds_ , with the man you loved as you possibly could. I was angry at the world at it made me angry at you, and I didn’t know any better. But I’m sorry.”

He didn’t have to turn to know the Anomaly was surging up behind him, he just closed his eyes and let it swallow him whole.

* * *

_“Hello, darling. Sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows,_  
_sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell_  
_and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that,_  
_but I should have known.”_  
**Richard Siken**

Clarke was on the Eligius ship, tucked away in some unexplored corridor, peering out a window at the planet below. She remembered the anticipation she’d felt before they reached the ground, the hope that things would be better. She remembered the hope being extinguished as Russell stood over her in the dark.

She looked at the binary suns hovering over the planet and thought about the destruction they could cause when they eclipsed.

“Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” She asked the empty air. “That Bellamy and I can’t ever be together because we only make everything worse?”

As if Time itself was arguing with her, a door opened to her right and Bellamy stopped dead in his tracks.

“Sorry, I… I didn’t think anyone else knew about this place,” he said awkwardly.

“No, sorry, I-” she took a deep breath. “I just wanted to be alone for a while, and this place seemed as good as any. I’ll get out of your way.”

“No!” Bellamy caught the word between his teeth and stuttered over an explanation. “I mean, I just… I don’t want to kick you out. Do you… do you want to stay with me?”

She hesitated, but she couldn’t say no when he was looking at her like that. Once he realised she wasn’t trying to leave anymore, he relaxed, corners of his eyes crinkling as he leaned against the window and looked out over the planet. She moved next to him, arm pressed against his in the small place, and if she expected him to flinch away, she was pleasantly surprised to feel him lean into her, like he needed the support.

“Are you okay?”

He made a small noise in the back of his throat. “That’s a loaded question.”

“Are you surviving?” Clarke amended.

He didn’t answer, just let his head drop between his arms, muscles shaking as he cried, and she wanted to help, to hold him, and she had to remind herself that she wasn’t allowed; that wasn’t her job anymore.

“I thought once we woke the others, it would get easier,” he said, muffled as he pressed his face against his forearm. “That being able to grieve Monty and Harper together would make it easier to move on, but all it does is remind me that they’re not here. Every time I look around the room, I expect to see them there, laughing with Emori or asking Raven about something, and when they’re not…”

“I’m sorry,” Clarke whispered. “I know how that feels. After Praimfaya, I saw you everywhere. At first I didn’t see you, and that was heartbreaking. Every time I looked around I expected you to be standing at my side, and every time you weren’t, it killed me. So after a while, I stopped looking around. I kept my eyes forward and tried not to see you in the corners of my eyes. And then I reached the desert and the hallucinations started. Like the universe was playing a cruel joke on me - the second I decided to stop searching for you, there you were. But you weren’t real. And it was like torture. Worse than the burns or the sand or anything else.”

He sobbed, hiding his face in his arms.

“But I got through it,” she tried, gentle. Green started to pull at her fingertips and she wished she could stay longer, could tell Bellamy exactly how she got through it, but that wasn’t his conversation to have now. That was a conversation they were going to have on the ground in a few days time. “You’ll get through this too. You’re not alone, Bellamy. You have Echo, you have your friends, you have...”

“I know,” he mumbled. “I just feel like I’m missing something more than Monty and Harper sometimes, you know? I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like I’m mourning something that’s right in front of me.”

She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. Maybe better than anyone.”

She reached across to touch him, to swear to him that everything was going to be okay, but the wave swept her away, leaving a dejected Bellamy by himself to grieve his friends.

* * *

_My job is to sit by the buzzer and wait_  
_Wait for the action_  
_Wait for the end times, the end times_  
_All thoughts bolted down so safe_  
_Now spiral away_  
**The End Times - Ball Park Music**

Bellamy could hear yelling.

There was a red sun in the sky and red dirt beneath his feet, and he knew exactly what day it was. He started sprinting towards the source of the sound, and arrived at the edge of the square just as his eclipse affected self attacked Clarke.

He was going to kill her.

Clarke was struggling, but he was stronger, and Murphy wasn’t going to stop him.

Without thinking, Bellamy lurched forward, mind singularly focussed on saving Clarke from himself, but before he could make it two steps in their direction, something barrelled into him and he stumbled against the schoolroom door and fell inside.

Except he didn’t hit the ground.

Instead, a familiar sensation caught him and he felt himself being yanked through time.

When he did land, it wasn’t on orange dirt or grey metal - it was on a familiar forest floor, and he hit the ground _hard_. It knocked the wind out of him, and he coughed, trying to get his bearings. Whatever had tackled him was still on top of him, which really wasn’t helping him get oxygen back into his lungs.

He tried to blink the impact from his head, and when he did, he glimpsed blonde curls swinging above him. His wits returned to him faster than he thought possible.

“Clarke?” he breathed.

She repositioned herself on top of him, trying to take her weight off his chest. “Sorry, sorry, I just- you couldn’t intervene, we’re not supposed to change anything in the past, it’ll mess with things, and if we want to get back to the time we left, we have to be really careful not to change anything.”

He stared up at her. “Okay.”

She tried to climb off him, but she seemed to be struggling, and it slowly caught up to his brain that his hands were firmly planted on her waist, holding her in place. He wondered when they’d gotten there. She was practically straddling him now.

“Are you okay?” Clarke was looking down at him, concerned, and he noticed that he still hadn’t moved.

 _“Clarke,”_ he said, expelling all the air in his lungs as he sat up, twisting her with him until they were sitting, tangled up in each other, and he burrowed his face into the crook of her neck, breathing her in. “God, you scared the hell out of me, Princess.”

* * *

_Time is up_  
_Put me in my place_  
_Do we have love here?_  
_'Cause when I get in the air_  
_I need to know if I'm gonna cry or smile_

_Take me down_  
_(Vines rising from the ground)_  
_I want you around_  
_(They shatter every window)_  
_To collect your sounds_  
_(And I'm free falling now)_  
_Where love might be found_  
**Love Might Be Found (Volcano) - Montaigne**

Clarke arrived in Sanctum near the lake, and she wandered up towards the city center, curious as to when exactly she was. She didn’t have to wait long - the sky turned red and by the time she made it there, everyone was chained up. She knew where she was, so she made sure to stay hidden amongst the buildings, avoiding Murphy and Bellamy.

She saw it unfolding again, unable to do anything except watch, and when Bellamy threw her to the ground, she saw green approaching and waited to be yanked apart, but instead, someone sprinted out of the wave and onto the edge of the town square.

 _Bellamy_.

He ran a hand through his curls, getting his bearings, and she watched as he realised what was happening, as his eyes locked onto the carnage before him.

She knew what he was going to do before he did, and she started running.

He surged forward, making a beeline for his younger self with panic and fury in his eyes, and Clarke slammed into him, taking them both to the ground. Except the air glowed green and started tearing her molecules apart, and she held onto Bellamy’s shirt for dear life, scrunching it between her fingers desperately as she tried not to lose him to the wave.

They hit the ground together, Bellamy first, then she collapsed on top of him, and she tried to let go of his shirt but her fingers didn’t want to. “This time travel stuff is bullshit,” she muttered, irritable. “Seriously, what do you want with us?”

She pushed herself up on her knees so she could see Bellamy properly, checking his pulse, and he moaned, blinking his eyes open blearily. “Clarke?”

She tried to climb off him but his hands snaked up, catching her waist and holding her in place; she was so busy overthinking that she almost didn’t notice it, “Sorry, sorry, I just- you couldn’t intervene, we’re not supposed to change anything in the past, it’ll mess with things, and if we want to get back to the time we left, we have to be really careful not to change anything.”

He stared up at her, brown eyes like lakes. “Okay.”

She tried to climb off him again, finally realising that his hands were stopping her, and she tried not to think about how nice it was to have his palms against her sides. She refocused, concerned about how hard he’d hit the ground, “Are you okay?”

The question hung the air for a long second, before-

 _“Clarke,”_ he said, sitting up until she was practically in his lap, sliding his hands up and around her until he was hugging her like his life depended on it, and she could help but let him, bringing her own arms around his shoulders. “God, you scared the hell out of me, Princess.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I never meant to do that; all I wanted was to get your sister back for you. I knew that if I didn’t go, you were about to sneak out and go alone, and it’d be better for everyone if they lost me than you.”

“That’s not true!” He pulled away, eyes finding hers even in the dim light.

“Bellamy…” she started, but a small sound disrupted the moment and Clarke flinched, more to avoid staring at him for too long than out of actual fear. “What was that?”

He shook his head, unsure, and they scrambled to their feet, edging towards the source of the noise.

Their young selves, worse for wear and clearly exhausted, were slumped at the bottom of a tree, propped against each other and panting. They crouched, staying hidden so they could watch.

“Run away with me,” Young Bellamy begged.

Young Clarke barely seemed to register it except for the fact that her gaze cut across to the side of his face where he was steadfastly refusing to look at her.

“Come with me,” he repeated.

“What?”

“You and me. Screw everybody else. Let’s just… go.”

Young Clarke’s eyes widened fractionally, and for a moment, it looked like she was tempted, before the light died in her eyes and he recognised it before she gave her answer. “No.”

He nodded, accepting. “Jaha will kill me when he comes down.”

“We’ll figure something out, Bellamy, I promise,” she said, eyes fluttering.

“Can we figure it out later?”

“Whenever you’re ready,” she relaxed into his side, letting her eyes fall closed, and he leaned his head against hers.

Clarke watched as the two of them sat there, completely comfortable for the very first time since they reached the ground, and she realised just how defining of a moment this was in their lives. Without this day trip, they might never have become the co-leaders they had. Beside her, Bellamy was clearly having the same epiphany, and she felt his hand instinctively reaching for hers, fingers curling around her own. She felt the impact of the small action, grounding her, keeping her in the moment, and she wanted to hold onto it forever.

“C’mon, Princess,” he whispered in her ear, and tugged her back, away from the private moment between the two people they used to be. He didn’t say anything while they walked, hand in hand, until they reached a small clearing in the woods, far away from any living soul. Then, he turned to face her, picking up her other hand and holding them both between them. “I meant it, you know.”

“I know. You wanted someone to come with you. Much as you acted like a brave hero back then, you were never really a lone wolf.”

“No, I didn’t want _someone_ to come with me, Clarke. I wanted _you_.” Bellamy said, earnest, as tears welled in his eyes. “If I had spent this day with anyone else, it wouldn’t have ended the same. I wouldn’t have asked anyone else. I asked you because I wanted _you_.”

“Bellamy-”

“No, Clarke, I’m tired of running away from this,” he swore under his breath. “Clarke, _I love you!”_

“That’s not fair, Bellamy,” she said, tears spilling down her cheeks as she tried to pull away.

“Why? Why isn’t it fair that we get what _we_ want for once?!”

“Because you can’t! Because you have a girlfriend and she’s not me!” She yelled, the words catapulting out of her mouth before she could stop them, and if Bellamy’s grip on her palms wasn’t so tight she’d clap them against her mouth to ram the words back in. His lips parted, jaw slacking slightly, and she wanted the ground to swallow her whole.

She moved backwards, but he moved with her, closing the gap until they were almost chest to chest.

“Stop it, this isn’t fair,” she begged.

“I’m not with Echo anymore,” he said in a rush. “We broke up a while ago and I was never sure how to tell you, because telling you felt like taking a step towards something big and I never felt like it was the right time.”

“So why are you telling me now?” She whispered.

“Because I met someone today, who told me that there is no right time. There will never be a _right_ time. There’s just whatever time we have left,” his head dipped closer. “And I love you. And I’m tired of not saying it. _I love you.”_

“Bellamy…” Clarke wanted more than anything else to give in to the moment, but it felt too good to be true. “We have a world to rebuild. People to lead.”

“And none of that changes the fact that we work better together.”

“It’s complicated, Bellamy, _we’re_ complicated,” she tried.

“Yeah. But we have _time_ , and I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, nose bumping against hers. “I’m in, Princess. Come with me.”

And it was the question she’d been waiting years for him to ask again. Not to run away with him, but to come with him wherever he went, no matter what. She nodded. “Together?”

“Together.” Bellamy’s expression cracked into a wide grin and it cracked open her heart with it and she loved him more than she could ever put into words so she simply let herself smile back and press her forehead against his like they had all the time in the world.

“I missed you,” she breathed, and when he kissed her, there were tears on her cheeks and they soaked his palms as they came up around her face and held her there. She kissed him back with tenfold passion, throwing her arms around his neck and dragging him closer, ever closer, like she could make their bodies one and the same, and she was happier than she’d been in a long time, but her heart was breaking too.

Breaking for all the moments they missed.

Breaking for the time they lost.

Breaking for the love she’d been holding from him for so long.

He broke the kiss, head falling against her shoulder, and she knew he was feeling the same way. She felt his face against her neck and tried to hide her obvious anxious swallow by returning the favour, nosing against his shirt, but he noticed. Of course he did. He curled his arms around her, like if he held her close enough, he could hide them from their sadness and smother it in the love they’d been missing for so long.

She finally managed to speak the words she’d been holding back for so very long. “I love you, Bellamy. For all the time we lost. For all the moments I never told you. For however long we have left - _I love you.”_

And this time she barely noticed when the green wave hit and swirled around them, because Bellamy was mumbling something into her skin, and despite every cell in her body screaming out against the Anomaly, her heart somehow felt like it was floating inside her, carried along by the current. Not fighting it anymore.

* * *

_“If the dead are watching, I want them to see us writing, dancing, singing, painting._  
I want them to see that we still reach out to each other.”  
**Richard Siken**

She loved him.

That was the first and only thought that Bellamy had as the wave spat them out. They tumbled together into the grass and this time he landed on top of her, up on his elbows in an instant so he wasn’t crushing her, and she looked up at him like he’d hung both suns in the sky.

He didn’t care when or where they were this time - for all he knew they could be in Azgeda territory during a battle - all he knew was that Clarke Griffin loved him back, and it turned his world upside-down.

“Hey,” he murmured, brushing his lips to hers.

“Hey yourself,” she hummed back, eyes crinkling in that genuine smile that she kept hidden from almost anyone except him.

“What, no hello for us?” A voice said, and their heads jerked around only to see Murphy standing in front of a small crowd of people, grinning wolfishly down at them. Beside him were Octavia, Miller, Emori, Raven and Madi, and behind them were almost all of their friends.

“Leave him be,” Octavia scolded, helping the two of them to their feet.

Bellamy slid his arm around Clarke’s waist to keep her at his side, and she made no motion to leave, which set him at ease almost immediately. He turned to their friends. “What are you all doing here?”

“Octavia came back,” Diyoza shrugged. “Told us that this is where the Anomaly would throw you. And for some reason, we missed your ridiculous asses.”

“Not me; I only missed your faces, because I don’t objectify people like that,” Murphy deadpanned, earning a smacked arm from Emori. “I’m just kidding, we only got back an hour ago so I haven’t even had a chance to yearn for your asses. Anyway, we thought we might have a kind of welcome back party for the two of you, surprise! Although it was more of a surprise for us to be honest. I thought you’d fall out of the wave fighting or in trouble, but instead you’re all-” he waved a hand vaguely.

“In love with each other?” Miller finished for him. Madi made a high-pitched squealing noise beside him that sounded suspiciously like she was trying to force down excitement at the prospect.

“No, they’ve been in love with each other for years,” Murphy argued. “They’ve never been… this.”

“This is what healthy communication looks like, kids,” Diyoza deadpanned.

Bellamy glanced down at the woman in his arms and he was inclined to agree. “But you’re all okay, nothing terrible happened while we were gone?”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Jordan shrugged.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Tell you what, we’ll tell you about it over dinner, and you can tell us about your time travel adventures.” Diyoza suggested, clearly trying to move the crowd away from the hulking anomalous wave that was still undulating behind them. At least it wasn’t trying to swallow any of them yet.

“Deal,” Clarke said, as Madi tucked herself into her other side like she belonged there. Octavia side-hugged Bellamy but she didn’t linger, choosing instead to walk beside them, which was still a big step forward from where they’d been before she disappeared. Bellamy had so many questions for her, but he held his tongue. Those could be answered another time. They all started walking back towards the city and Clarke asked, “Murphy, Raven and I ended up back at the dropship first; where did you guys go?”

“Oh, here and there,” Miller said evasively. “Learned some Greek mythology, took a paternity test or five. The normal stuff.”

At everyone’s bewildered looks, Emori rolled her eyes. “We went to the future-”

“Spoilsport.”

“-and met our future kids,” she explained. “Yours were all the spitting image of the two of you.”

“So was yours,” Bellamy said, smiling at his friend.

“Yours?” Murphy scrunched up his face in mock-indignation.

“Ours,” Emori corrected, winking at him as she led the charge back towards the city center.

Clarke tilted her head up to Bellamy. “Ours? We have kids, in the future? Do they- No, wait! Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

“You want it to be a surprise?”

“No, I just… I want to live every moment from now on, exactly as it comes. Like you said, there’s never a _right time_ for anything, there’s just _this time._ And I want to live in these moments, in every moment, with you.” She smiled at him before dropping a kiss to the crown of Madi’s forehead. “And with you. With our family; no matter how mixed up it is - we made it. Together.”

“No more missing each other when we’re standing three feet apart,” he promised.

She leaned into his side as they walked, falling into step with each other the way they always had, except this was better, this was _more_. The suns were rising over a new day. “We make every moment the right moment. For as long as we have.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day my loves, I don't believe in capitalist holidays but I do believe in taking every available opportunity to spread love and I hope you're all doing okay and taking care of yourselves. And I hope you like this very un-valentiney valentine! <3 <3 <3


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